Archive for the 'business of wine' Category

The NY director of sales and the district manager at Southern Wine & Spirits (SWS), one of the country’s behemoth wine and spirits distributors, hold the honor. According to the NY Post, they lost Laurent-Perrier champagnes from their portfolio. So they decided to go to a night club, The Hustler Club, order two bottles of the wine for $1,000, then be photographed dumping the wines out. Oh, and one of the pictures had a stripper fondling the sales director’s crotch.

Badda bing! Then they sent the pix to Sabine Lapatie of Laurent-Perrier. Keepin’ it classy! Small wonder Laurent-Perrier left Southern. See the pix over at nypost.com

Since the Post story, Southern says that the two have been suspended pending an investigation into what it called the “disturbing allegations.”

The Swiss franc surged in foreign currency trading yesterday as the central bank decided to stop defending the 1.20 floor with the euro. Last trade in the EURCHF was 0.99, so that’s a 20% surge for the Swissie. The CEO of Swatch was appalled at the currency move will likely send prices higher in foreign markets for the “Swiss made” watches. James B. Stewart, one of my favorite financial journalists, has an article in today’s Times examining the role of currency moves on various luxury products (and was kind enough to include a quote from Dr. Vino).

So, because I know you loooove talking currency moves even more than uncorking a good white wine from Neuchatel, what does the Swiss franc surge mean for wine? Read more…

The euro hit 1.18 against the US dollar overnight, a level last seen in 2006. One might think that suddenly Barolos, Burgundies and Champagnes will become cheaper here in the US. Well, a European wine lover can dream…Here are eight reasons why we won’t see discounts on wine shelves in the immediate future.

1. Retailers have stock on their shelves already. They have to clear that inventory. On that note: Read more…

The self-proclaimed “Mr. Wonderful” on the ABC show “Shark Tank” reached an agreement to invest $2.5 million in the single-serve wine company called Zipz. That gave Zipz the $25 million they were seeking.

Making the presentation for Zipz was Andrew McMurray. McMurray is more known in the wine world as Read more…

Here’s today’s bit of wine law crazee: back in June, the Sacramento Visitor and Convention Center tweeted a link to a local supermarket’s annual consumer tasting, which has over 300 local wineries (and many breweries) pouring their wares. One participating winery’s account on Twitter retweeted that tweet. And now, they are getting rapped on the knuckles by the Cal ABC, the state’s liquor regulatory authority.

A chill has since frozen the fingers tapping out winery tweets across the Golden State. If a winery’s license could be jeopardized by a generic retweet to a huge tasting, wineries may fear what right to freedom of speech they have. Read more…

Box wine made an appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank last Friday. And like blood in the water, this startup had the sharks in a feeding frenzy with all five sharks bidding (or trying to bid).

Before wine enthusiasts get too excited, it’s worth noting that the beverage is more wine-arita than winery. Let’s break it down. Called Beatbox wines, it comes in a box styled as a beatbox. Nice! Two 5-liter boxes sell on their site for $64.99, which comes out to the equivalent of about $5 a bottle. So they’ve got the value pricing covered. And now, the content: this “wine-based” beverage with 11.1% alcohol comes in several flavors including Blue Razzberry Lemonade and Cranberry Limeade. Oh, and these serving instrux: “Try BeatBox on its own, with a mixer, in a cocktail, or as frozen BeatBoxicles!”

Billionaire Mark Cuban put it best on the show: “You’re not selling wine. You’re selling fun.”

Kevin O’Leary tasted it and proclaimed, “This tastes like S**t!” And then he bid on a slice of the company.

But it was Cuban who came out ahead, giving the Austin-based entrepreneurs five times the amount of money they were seeking for a third of the company’s equity–at a 50% higher valuation than they were seeking.

Club W, a wine club that sells private label wine directly to consumers, has raised $9.5 million in its latest round of funding. The company, led by CEO Xander Oxman, had previously raised $3.1 million in a seed round. The WSJ reports that Bessemer Venture Partners led this round; the previous round was led by Crosscut Ventures. The WSJ did not state the company’s valuation at either round.

Part of the Club W pitch includes calling themselves a “global winery” that cuts out all the tiers of the wine biz, including winery, importer, wholesaler, and retailer to offer wines at about $13 each (three a month for $39). Wines have names such as “So this happened…” and “Alchymist noir red blend.” Their web site does not state how they have cracked the perennial wine shipping nut though if the LA-based company is acting as a bonded winery and a licensed importer, the number of states they could ship to could run into the dozens.

In the recent wine venture capital beat, Club W has now soaked up the most funding. Coravin, which stuck its needle into the biotech community, is second. Vivino, the wine app based in Denmark, is running third. Silicon Valley’s Delectable, which closed a $3 million round in May, is fourth.

Lot 18 raised the most venture capital for a wine business post-recession at $44 million. But the company has had layoffs and abandoned the “flash sale” model. In other private equity news, The Wine Advocate sold an controlling stake for reportedly $15 million in late 2012.

Domaine Faiveley of Burgundy has announced the acquisition of Billaud-Simon for their first vineyard purchase in Chablis. The 50-acre estate includes 4 acres of Grand Cru sites in Vaudésir, Les Clos, Les Preuses and Blanchots. They also have 22 acres of premier cru sites. Domaine Faiveley now has 350 acres in Burgundy.

I have always liked Billaud-Simon’s wines, so it is sad to see the end of an era. However, Erwan Faiveley (who chatted with us a few years ago), has really steered S.S. Faiveley in a good direction since taking the helm. So I will look forward to seeing the results of this acquisition.